Back in the old days when I was a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, a friend of mine and I played handball a couple of times a week (I was a terrible player) and talked about books. I'd just read Charles Portis's True Grit, and my friend recommended that I read Norwood, an earlier book by Portis. I did, and I've read it a couple of times since. It's still as hilarious as ever. If you haven't read it, you should give it a try. [Trigger Warning: Characters in this book use the n-word.] The cover to the left is from the movie edition, which is the one I read this time. I'll report on the movie on Tuesday.There's not much of a plot in Norwood. It's a road-trip novel. Norwood gets out of the army on a hardship discharge when his father dies because there's no one to take care of his sister in Ralph, Texas. Norwood goes to work at a filling station much like the one in Mayberry where Gomer worked. Vernell gets a job as a waitress and gets married. Norwood's not happy with the situation at home, and he's not happy with the fact that an army buddy owes him $70. So he sets off for New York to get the money. Then he goes back to Ralph. Along the way he meets a lot of interesting and amusing characters, including a conman, a midget formerly known as The World's Smallest Perfect Man, a chicken, and a girl named Rita Lee, to whom he becomes engaged almost immediately. These encounters are all laugh-out-loud funny, or they are to me, even on the third reading. I went on to read all of Portis's novels as they came along (there were too few of them, alas), and while I like some better than others, they're all wonderful. Especially this one.

Today I was reading something by Fred Blosser about music of Ennio Morricone, and it occurred to me that we don't experience movies the way we used to. I'm sure I've mentioned before that when I was a college student in Austin throughout most of the 1960s, the two downtown theaters (the State and the Paramount) would show their regular features on Sunday evening and follow those with sneak previews of a new movie. In those days there wasn't a lot of hype about movies. We might've read a review of the movie we intended to see, but that was about all the information we'd have about it. We'd know nothing at all about the sneak preview, so we'd have no expectations. Can anybody experience a movie like that now? I doubt it. We start hearing about them as soon as there's a director attached, and after that the hype builds. Sure, there are some independent productions or throwaway movies that we might not know about, but that's not the same. So you have to imagine me and Judy sitting in the theater in our preferred seat (first row in the balcony) when, say, A Fistful of Dollars comes on the screen. And when we hear that music. It's safe to say that we hadn't heard or seen anything quite like those two things, and it was great. When I went to the college the next day, half the big bullpen office full of graduate students was talking about the movie. There was an excitement about it that's impossible to imagine now, I think. People get excited about new movies, sure, but not in the same way as we did about something different and unexpected.Have I mentioned that I miss the old days?

7-Year-Old Fools School With Poorly Spelled Note: (NEWSER) – A Texas school district is investigating after the staff at one of its elementary schools was fooled by a misspelled, suspiciously childlike note passed off by a 7-year-old student, KTRK reports. Instead of going to the after-school program at Sheldon Elementary like she was supposed to on Monday, Rosabella Dahu gave the staff a note. The note, verbatim, reads: "I want Rosabella to go too dus 131 today. To: Ms. Reign." Staff promptly sent Rosabella along to the school bus. Hat tip to Deb.

Some interesting and unexpected titles on this list.AbeBooks: Top 100 Most Searched-For Books of 2015: It's never dull when we dive into BookFinder.com's dusty archives of digital data to compile a list of the most searched for out-of-print books from the previous year. Sex, religion, quilting, gardening, swimming, pike fishing, cooking and UFOs, you can find all the important aspects of life in this selection of literature.

I'm confident when I say that you're not going to find another book like this for a while. Maybe ever. William Murray, the same author who's continued the adventures of Doc Savage and Tarzan and others now tackles the biggest subject of all: God. The subtitle calls the book "an inspired work." In a brief note at the end, Murray calls it "a channeled work." What that might mean, I'll leave up to you, as Murray doesn't explain.Trigger Warning: The main character here is God, so some might find the book blasphemous or at the very least a challenge to their beliefs. God awakens with no knowledge of who he is or what he can do. He gains awareness, and creation begins. Experiments. Eventually mankind shows up and not just on one planet. Naturally there are problems. And Time. There's another problem. And all the while God is trying to answer the question of who or what he is. If you're looking for something completely different and have an interest in philosophical investigations, this might be just what you're looking for.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot might not be a great movie, but it's sure a good one. It was written and directed by Michael Cimino, who went on to bigger (although not necessarily greater) things. Eastwood is a bank robber known as The Thunderbolt because he uses an anti-tank cannon to break into a vault. Bridges (Oscar nominated) is Lightfoot. He drives fast. There's also a great supporting cast, including George Kennedy, as brutal as he ever was, Geoffrey Lewis, and Gary Busey. The plot is a little complicated, but here goes. Eastwood is hiding out from members of his old gang because they believe he betrayed them. He didn't, but he's the only one who knows where the money from their last job is hidden. They catch up with him, and he's saved by Bridges (purely by accident). The two team up, with Bridges just about stealing the movie with his performance as a happy-go-lucky guy, and they bond. They get together with Kennedy and Lewis and go to find the money, which was hidden in an old school. They find the school is gone, replaced by a big new one, so Bridges proposes that they pull another job, robbing the same place they group had robbed before. They pull off the job (Bridges in drag!), but of course things go wrong and then wronger. The movie, which had started off in a lighthearted way and which had been quite funny most of the time, has taken a much darker turn. The ending is bleak.If you've never seen this one, give it a look. Highly recommended.

Vanity Fair: Is a Marx Brothers revival in the offing? You bet your life, if Universal Studios has anything to say about it. On Sunday, May 1, David Steinberg, comedian and friend of Groucho, will present a restored version of the 1932 football comedy Horse Feathers at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. It is one of five essential Marx Brothers comedies from the late 1920s and early 1930s that have been restored by Universal—and all it takes is one look at current political headlines to know they’re coming back just in time.

Jeff Fenner's a guy with problems. He's a drug dealer who loves what he's selling, his sister has just been reported a suicide, he owes money to the wrong people, and then he gets thrown in jail.Holly Barnes is an actress with few credits. She's in an abusive relationship, and she has her own addiction problems. She becomes involved with a self-help group called Saving our Lives (SoL) and a charismatic man who calls himself Art. Art is literally a hypnotic guy, and when Holly falls under his spell, he's quick to take advantage.Ron Pool is a reporter who wonders why so many young women from a certain area have committed suicide. One of these young women is Jeff's sister.The lives of these three come together as Ron investigates the suicides, as Jeff tries to climb out of the hole he's in, and as Holly struggles to free herself from her problems and from Art, who turns out to be even worse than she'd imagined.Javorsky writes with skill and authority about the shadier side of sunny Southern California and about addiction and recovery. He makes you care about some unlikable (at first) people and what happens to them. Check it out.

When is May Day and what does it mean?: (CNN)To most people in the Northern Hemisphere, May Day conjures images of brightly colored twirling ribbons and promises of warm days ahead. That's not the whole story, though: May Day is also a day of protests and riots that traces its modern roots back to a world-changing explosion in Chicago. And there's also this: Well, it is a fact that May Day, which the children do enjoy with all vibes, is not an overly prominent holiday in America. Yet, it does have a long and notable history as one of the world's principal festivals. The origin of the May Day as a day for celebration dates back to the days, even before the birth of Christ. And like many ancient festivals it too has a Pagan connection.